Big Pharma, I Thank You
After suffering miserably from a sinus infection for most of the last week, I'm up and about today, feeling, nearly, back to normal--only about 36 hours after starting a five-day course of Zithromax, one of the brand names under which the antibiotic azythromycin is sold. (After we finished recording the podcast this morning, I urged Rob, who, although on the other side of the continent has come down with the very same symptoms from which I was suffering, to mention Zithromax to a doc himself.)
Louis Pasteur, I find on poking around on the Internet, had some inkling as long ago as the eighteen-seventies that certain drugs could be used to inhibit the growth of bacteria, but it wasn't until 1932 that a team of scientists, working for the German pharmaceutical combine Bayer, figured out how to make the first antibiotic widely available. During the Second World War, antibiotics saved countless lives, and a new stream of such drugs continues to assist sufferers, such as yours truly, today.
You can't cook up antibiotics in your garage. To develop them, then manufacture them inexpensively enough to make them available to large populations, you need teams of scientists, industrial engineers, and marketers--the kinds of teams that exist at great big companies.
Big Pharma has its shortcomings, but it's worth remembering that it has alleviated human suffering in specific and tangible ways--ways that Big Government can scarcely match.
ObamaCare delenda est.
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Jun '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
This last couple of weeks I've had good reason to thank Cephelexin to clear up a staph infection to a small incision. Worked wonders.
Obamacare will probably not allow people over sixty to use it. I'm sure spit and mud will work fine in future for people my age.
Dec '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
This might only help for a bacterial infection, of course. Too often patients have viral infections that antibiotics will not effect, but insist that their doctors send them home with a useless prescription.
Aug '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Not to kvetch too much, but I have a cold that dates from the NR cruise two months ago. Yesterday my wife guessed that the mold remaining in our house that sits on the banks of the, mostly flooded in 2011, Missouri might have something to do with it. It's working as I have switched my support to Romney. Most of the illuminati on the cruise said it would be so. Took me awhile to realize it wasn't a virus. Think the zithromax will work Dr. Robinson ? ( and of course I understand that the contributors can't offer medical advice )
Mar '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Ironically, the current state of antibiotics reflects many of the shortcomings of big pharma as well.
Even though antibiotic resistance is at an all-time high and many previously potent drugs have been rendered useless, almost none of the big pharma companies are investing in new antibiotic development.
Why? Because a) we have already found so many, that it is harder to find new ones, b) most antibiotics are prescribed for only short periods, and c) once widespread resistance develops, the drug (and expensive investment) become almost useless.
Hopefully the market will soon provide new incentives for research on badly-needed new antibiotics, but unfortunately it might take a wave of preventable deaths first.
Jan '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Thank you for this post. The individuals who carelessly complain about the evils of "Big Pharma" should have see what the world would look like without them (including what a world without vaccines would look like).
Some individuals complain about the prices of drugs but have no idea the millions that were invested in their development. My husband is a scientist employed by a pharmaceutical company, part of a team developing a new cancer therapy. A team of PhDs have been working on it for several years, and it will be years before it makes it to market, assuming it even does. So yes, it will be expensive, because people like my husband do not work for free after investing countless years earning graduate science degrees - they must be paid. If it doesn't make it through the trials, it will never make it to market, and those costs will never be recouped. So every attempt at a new drug or treatment is really a very expensive experiment by a pharmaceutical company, and there is no guarantee of success.
They are geniuses, and they have my respect.
May '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Ah, yes - the ubiquitous Z-Pack. I've never seen the Phizer version, though; I always wind up with the Teva generic. At times, it hasn't quite packed the punch I needed, leading me to ponder if "Z-Pack" is really just the Greek word for "placebo."
Nov '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Quibble here: I fully agree that Obamacare delenda est. But the more important point to be drawn from your Zithromax experience is that the outrageously huge cost of drug development, imposed by our current regulatory environment, also needs to be addressed. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars (literally) to get a drug developed and to market. If we eliminate Obamacare but don't deal with this problem, then we aren't closer to solving the overall healthcare funding problem.
Nov '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
I see Nicegrizzly beat me to my point.
May '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Ya know, if y'all keep curing your ills, we'll never get this social security system straightened out.
May '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
It's nearly impossible for most people alive today to imagine a world without widely-available and effective medicine (among many other things). It's the old paradox that doing something well makes it look easy and causes everyone to take it for granted.
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Am in total agreement, Lucy (and Nicegrizzly).
Mar '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Funny, in this thread everyone is falling over themselves with praise for science, whereas in any thread mentioning global warming or evolution. Too bad we can't privatize and incentivize global warming research...
Jun '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Peter, it wasn't but 20 minutes ago a friend asked me if I knew Latin, and I replied "Some. Mostly law terms and how to say 'Carthage must be destroyed.'" Didn't think I would be using that one today.
Mar '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Having worked in the pharmaceutical industry (for "small" pharma), I give it two cheers.
The profit motive in medicine has brought wonders for mankind. There are so many medications today which either would not be available at all, or so cheaply, were it not for the robust competition which exists. That is an unequivocal success.
However, the pharmaceutical companies are not angels: like any other company, their self-interest only aligns with customers' interests when customers force them to. Most companies have no qualms about bringing drugs to market which they know to be ineffective, thereby exploiting the information imbalance. Additionally, profitability leads them to neglect many public health needs.
The pharmaceutical industry has been overwhelmingly beneficial to society, but let's not pretend they have our best interests at heart.
Dec '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Good for you, Peter. I suffered my cold for a month and allowed it to become bronchitis before I was beaten enough to spend about 2 minutes with my doctor and get a Z-Pack.
May '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Mendel
Funny, in this thread everyone is falling over themselves with praise for science, whereas in any thread mentioning global warming or evolution. Too bad we can't privatize and incentivize global warming research... · Jan 13 at 5:42pm
Surely you know the reason for the difference. Medicine is real science: using knowledge to make predictions, then systematically testing them, and putting the results to practical use. And it has produced real, measurable benefits. Climate science in many instances does not fit that description.
Jan '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Hear hear! Just finished my 5 day course after suffering for a month! Feel like a new man.
My sensitivity to doctor's concern about oversubscribing antibiotics is the reason I suffered for a month. After two weeks of suffering I accepted the "its a nasty virus, go home and drink lots of fluids" diagnosis (despite my history of these things), but two weeks later I wasn't leaving the office without the drugs. Sometimes patient does indeed know best.
May '10
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Peter, it's posts like this which make Ricochet great — the way they tie everything together.
Hurray for Big Pharma! Now, if they would just stop advertising their products on TV to ignorant patients, instead of to physicians.
Agreed on the over-regulation. Regulation is necessary, but it can be better provided by private organizations and watchdogs like Consumer Reports. The FDA should be eliminated entirely. If individuals forgo basic research into the products they use, that's their problem. If they want to take big risks, that's their right.
Mar '11
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Mark Wilson
Mendel
Funny, in this thread everyone is falling over themselves with praise for science, whereas in any thread mentioning global warming or evolution. Too bad we can't privatize and incentivize global warming research...
Surely you know the reason for the difference. Medicine is real science: using knowledge to make predictions, then systematically testing them, and putting the results to practical use. And it has produced real, measurable benefits. Climate science in many instances does not fit that description.
My comment was mostly tongue-in-cheek.
I say mostly, because I have worked with both evolutionary biologists and biomedical researchers, and my experience has been that methodology and scientific rigor is quite comparable between both fields. Most evolutionary biologists I know could easily walk into a pharmaceutical company tomorrow without changing their ways and be very successful, yet too many conservatives are eager to divide the two fields into the "good" and "bad" science.
The main difference between the fields isn't the type of scientist, but rather the fact that medical research has a proper incentive structure, and controlled experiments can be more easily performed.
And frankly, I have no idea what climate science is about.
Re: Big Pharma, I Thank You
Mendel: Ironically, the current state of antibiotics reflects many of the shortcomings of big pharma as well.
Even though antibiotic resistance is at an all-time high and many previously potent drugs have been rendered useless, almost none of the big pharma companies are investing in new antibiotic development.Jan 13 at 5:09pm
The regulatory hurdle for any drug approval has escalated significantly in recent years, raising the total investment in a typical new product to $1 billion.
Another issue is that antibiotics are used only briefly, significantly limiting profit potential when compared to a drug administered on a chronic basis. Lipitor is taken forever, azithromycin only for five days, a real issue for those in the business of selling pills.
Consider also that most new and improved drugs are preferred over the products they replace. Not so with antibiotics. A superior Zithromax, uniquely, won't be used at all by most physicians. The new product will be reserved for rare resistant strains, lest indiscriminate use encourage development of widespread resistance to the new wonder drug.
Edited on January 14, 2012 at 3:42am